phati'tude Literary Magazine Vol. 3, No. 1

27

SPRING HAS RETURNED A SEASON OF RENEWAL Featuring essays by Debra Kang Dean, Petra Newman & Kenda Robertson

V O L. 3 || N O. 1 || S P R I N G 2 0 1 1 a publication of The Intercultural Alliance of Artists & Scholars, Inc.(IAAS) a New York nonprofit organization

Gabrielle David Editor-in-Chief

54

Jennifer-Crystal Johnson Associate Editor

Jennifer-Crystal Johnson INTERVIEWS WITH JAMES PIATT & KIMBERLY N. RUFFIN

Jon Sands Editor Karen Chau Assistant Editor Lorraine Miller Nuzzo Art Director Travis Smithlin Kari McBride Graphic Artists

Steve Newman ERNEST HEMINGWAY & THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR

Michelle Aragón Director, Marketing Communications

F

E

A

BOARD OF DIRECTORS Gabrielle David, Chair Angela Sternreich, Secretary Lynn Korsman, Treasurer Shirley Bradley LeFlore Stephanie Agosto Michelle Aragón Naydene Brickus Nikita Hunter

T

82

U

R

E

64 S

L. E. Bryan L O V E & D E AT H I N D A N A N G

Advisory Board Kenneth Campbell Robert Coburn Andrew P. Jackson (Sekou Molefi Baako) Special Advisor for the IAAS Board phati’tude Literary Magazine is published quarterly (Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall), ISSN: 1091-1480; ISBN: 1461095999; ISBN13: 978-1461095996. Copyright © 2011 by The Intercultural Alliance of Artists & Scholars, Inc. (IAAS). All rights reserved. Printed and bound in the U.S.A. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical without permission in writing from the Publisher. The views expressed by authors do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors of phati’tude Literary Magazine, the Board of Directors of the IAAS, donors or sponsors. Single issue: US$18; Annual subscriptions: US$65; Int’l-Canadian: US$75; Institutional US$110. We offer special discounts for classes and groups. The Publisher cannot guarantee delivery unless notification of change of address is received. Visit our website at www.phatitude.org. Manuscripts with SASE, letters to the editor and all other correspondence to phati’tude Literary Magazine, P.O. Box 4378, Grand Central Station, New York, NY 10163-4378; or email editor@phatitude.org. Cover Design: Lorraine Miller Nuzzo; Cover Art: Kristi Taylor (see p. 152).

P H A T I ‘ T U D E L I T E R A R Y M A G A Z I N E F A L L 2 0 1 0

C O N T E N T S DEPARTMENTS 6 10

16 143 146 152

EDITOR’S NOTE THIS & THAT JULIET GOOD FOX The Characteristics of Anti-Indianism 2011 LARRY HALES Gil Scott-Heron: An Appreciation SUSAN ALLEN Black Irish Pride BOOK REVIEWS THE FINAL WORD Morris Dickstein CONTRIBUTORS COVER ART Kristi Taylor

FEATURESESSAYS 27

64

SPRING HAS RETURNED: A SEASON OF RENEWAL 28 DEBRA KANG DEAN In The Valley of its Saying PETRA NEWMAN Spring 34 35 KENDA ROBERTSON My View of Spring STEVE NEWMAN Ernest Hemingway & The Spanish Civil War

INTERVIEWS JENNIFER-CRYSTAL JOHNSON 54 James Piatt: Creative Evolution 60 Kimberly N. Ruffin: Driving Home the Point: A Closer Look at African American Eco-Literature

SHORT STORIES 82 110 118 124 V I S I T

O U R

L. E. BRYAN Love and Death in Da Nang SHARON ERBY Parallel CHRISTOPHER D. JOHNSON The Walk QUANIE MITCHELL Goodbye, Sookie

W E B S I T E

A T

W W W . P H A T I T U D E . O R G

S P R I N G H A S R E T U R N E D: A SEASON OF RENEWAL

PROSE POETRY WALTER BARGEN 45 Sirens 46 April Storms 46 Amphibious Life NATALIE JEANNE CHAMPAGNE 98 The Carpet WYN COOPER 53 Pollen GABRIELLE DAVID 37 Spring Has Returned & I Am Renewed SUSAN DEER CLOUD 75 Sunset, Susquehanna 76 Welcome to the Land of Ma’am 77 On Turtle’s Back Rising Out of the Brainwashed Waters LINH DINH 134 Longitudes RACHEL HADAS 43 The Road At Dawn 43 Question 43 The Firebird 44 The Feast 44 The Broken Rainbow

CHLOE HONUM 81 Spring HOPE HOUGHTON 131 Opera Glasses JOE JIMÉNEZ 140 Hog JENNIFER-CRYSTAL JOHNSON 135 True Joy 135 Lonely Face YURI KAGEYAMA 99 For women only SUJI KWOCK KIM 51 The Couple Next Door JAY LEEMING 107 Supermarket Historians 107 Here Be Dragons 108 Lao-Tzu in Exile 109 River MARJORIE MADDOX 49 Redux Blues 50 Jazz Memorial

V O L. 3 N O. 1

3

NATHAN MCCLAIN 42 Landscape with Goats JEN PALMARES MEADOWS 137 They’re brazil nuts, bitch TONY MEDINA 141 Broke Art History 142 Broke Gone with the Wind JESÚS PAPOLETO MELÉNDEZ 71 City Dwelling 72 Oye Mundo/Sometimes 74 Spring Again SHIVON MOZAFFAR 100 Jupiter’s Fire 100 Romanian Orphan RICH MURPHY 133 Innocence Agenda PETER PEREIRA 103 Holy Shit 104 Sims Position 105 A Lexicon of Nothing

JAMES G. PIATT 38 Spring Arrives JON SANDS 101 Me? 102 I Didn’t Cheat RAY SUCCRE 133 Coils, Stubble, Nothing More DON THACKREY 132 Sharing Christina’s World 132 Syncopation Triolet SHEREE RENÉE THOMAS 48 Survivor at rest WILLIAM TROWBRIDGE 39 First Bird of Spring 40 Spring Forward 40 Bad Birds CRAIG VAN RIPER 80 Donkeys for Hire 80 Santorini TERENCE WINCH 106 Objects of Spiritual Significance

4

P H A T I’T U D E LITERARYMAGAZINE

P H A T I ‘ T U D E L I T E R A R Y M A G A Z I N E S P R I N G 2 0 1 1

E D I T O R ‘ S N O T E G

A

B

R

I

E

L

L

E

D

A

V

I

D

“The idea behind “Spring Has Returned, A Season of Renewal” is to embody Rilke’s spring, a place and space for creating new ideas in poetry, music and art.”

I

WAS SITTING IN THE LIVING R OOM looking at the dull streaks ROOM of light peeking through the blinds when I sighed and said to myself, “Another gray day. When will it end?” Coupled with an equally dreary economic forecast, New York experienced one of grayest, snowiest winters in recent memory. Here it is, April, and the weather people were forecasting with glee yet another snow

Gabrielle David, founder and editor of phati’tude Literary Magazine, is a

storm when all I could think about was, “When will spring finally come?” And as I contemplated the arrival of spring and warm weather, I also thought about all the writing I could do, the great ideas I had shelved to do other projects. This eventually led me to think of Rainer Maria Rilke’s sonnet:

writer and multimedia artist who has worked as a desktop publisher, photographer, visual artist, video editor and musician.

“Spring has again returned. The Earth is like a child that knows many poems, many, o so many . . . . For the hardship of such long learning she receives the prize.”

Sonnets to Orpheus XXI (First Part) (tr. Cliff Crego)

V I S I T

O U R

W E B S I T E

A T

W W W . P H A T I T U D E . O R G

S P R I N G H A S R E T U R N E D: A SEASON OF RENEWAL

In Sonnets to Orpheus, Rilke shows what poetry meant to him, what he got from it and what he hoped for it. Consisting of 55 entire sonnets, Rilke’s continuous paean to Orpheus uses “spring” as a metaphor drawn from nature, depicting a sense of return and renewal. This was the impetus behind this issue, “Spring has Returned, Season of Renewal.”

In anticipation of spring’s return, it made sense to celebrate it as a season of renewal. It’s a time of transition, between winter and summer, when everything is changing rapidly, growing, greening, budding and flowering, beginning to stretch itself toward the sun. I think spring has an affect on all writers; it’s as if thoughts and feelings that hibernated all winter finally take root and one finds him or herself waking up, unfolding from the earth with words anew.

Living in New York, the transition from winter to spring is gradual as New Yorkers, in their eagerness to leave the cold behind, begin to peel layers of dark clothing and change into transitional attire like wearing shorts with boots. Greenery peaks through concrete, with restaurants reopening sidewalk cafes, and people eating lunch in corporate parks. Rebirth into light and warmth after a particularly cold, dark, snowy winter is welcomed by all.

I think this is why spring is my favorite season. It’s a time of year that symbolizes change, growth and hope that has become a wonderful catalyst for writing. The idea behind “Spring Has Returned, A Season of Renewal” is to embody Rilke’s spring, a place and space for creating new ideas in poetry, music and art.

But as I began putting this issue together and was looking for poetry and short stories that encapsulate “spring,” I quickly realized that many writers, at various points in their careers, strive to connect themselves to the natural world

through their writing, which led me to nature, environmental and place-based writing. In doing so, I discovered two types of writers in this genre: writers, who from time to time address nature in their work, and writers dedicated to the long tradition of writing about the natural world. While from the onset I wasn’t looking specifically for naturebased writing, much of the writing in this issue is from this genre.

For as long as people have been writing, they’ve been writing about nature. As witnessed through the work of Native American writers, the Transcendentalists, the Romantics, modern nature writers of the 20th century, and others, it is clear that the natural environment and ecology have played a very significant role in the development of our literary traditions.

Poets have long been inspired to tune their lyrics to the variations in landscape, the changes in season, and the natural phenomena around them. In the third century B.C.E, the Greek poet Theocritus began writing idylls (a short poem or prose piece depicting a rural or pastoral scene), to glorify and honor the simplicity of rural life. The eclogue, a more familiar form of surviving pastoral poetry that is attuned to the natural world and seasons, was first written by Virgil in 37 B.C.E. A popular form that shepherds often used to converse, the eclogue flourished during the Italian Renaissance, with its most notable authors being Dante and Petrarch.

Nature writing, which thrived during the Romantic Age of the late 18th century, was primarily centered on solitary explorations from a poetic, philosophical or scientific viewpoint.

It was the tradition of natural poetry that William Wordsworth had in mind when he proposed that poetry “takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.” This tranquil state might be most easily inspired if the poet would go out into nature, observe the

world around him, and translate those emotions and observations into verse.

(Later, transcendentalists such as Henry David Thoreau did exactly that.)

More often, nature writing has been attributed to the English Romantic Poets who wrote with spiritual depth, with careful observations by early Naturalists like William Bartram and John James Audobon to the impassioned advocacy of Rachel Carson and Edward Abbey (although he rejected the term for himself) during the early 20th century.

What surprised me is that this discipline truly encompasses a wide array of literature which includes literary nonfiction, fiction, poetry, and ecocriticism.

I also found that nature writing is not wholly defined by writers who specialize in this genre; in fact there are many writers who have written nature-based works are not known as “nature writers,” per se. Canonical figures that wrote in the genre include Ralph Waldo Emerson, John Burroughs, John Muir, Aldo Leopold, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Lord Byron and M. Krishnan.

An outgrowth of Realism, Naturalism was also a literary movement among novelists (such as Stephen Crane, Jack London, and Theodore Dreiser) toward the end of the 19th century and during the early decades of the 20th century.

Poets such as Robert Hass, Louise Glück, William Carlos Williams, Mary Oliver, Marianne Moore, Pablo Neruda, Denise Levertov, and W. S. Merwin have been adept in blending the Eastern and Western traditions of the nature writing. Sayumi Kamakura, Yoshiko Yoshino, Kenneth Rexroth, Gary Snyder, Akiko Yosano, Richard Wright, George Swede, Nick Virgilio, Gerald Vizenor, Lenard D. Moore and Sonia Sanchez have been equally inspired by the Japanese traditions of haiku and renga, which was originally conceived as a short associative meditation on the natural world.

V O L. 3 N O. 1

7

What is certain is that “nature writing,” which has existed from ancient times to the present, was always defined as a distinct European and American literary tradition that rarely (if at all) included people of color. I’m afraid that I am one of many people who never took their absence into consideration. Happily, this assumption has been recently challenged with anthologies and critical scholarship. Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry (2009), edited by Camille T. Dungy, is the first comprehensive collection of nature poetry by African American writers that offers a fresh perspective of the black community’s relationship to the natural world.

In Rooted in the Earth: Reclaiming the African American Environmental Heritage (2010), Dianne D. Glave draws on Africa and African art, literature, history, and theology to document the bond with nature that has long been part of the black experience. Scholar Kimberly N. Ruffin reframes contemporary African American writers as ecological writers by rethinking environmental literature through the lens of the black experience in her study, Black on Earth: African American Ecoliterary Traditions (2010). Alison Hawthorne Deming, a poet and nature writer, and Lauret E. Savoy, a geologist, compiled the collection, The Colors of Nature: Culture, Identity, and the Natural World (2011), an unprecedented and invaluable collection of forthright and bracing essays by writers of diverse cultural origins and disciplinary backgrounds. Collectively, these works are helping to expand the horizons of nature writing in a significant way, which includes people of color.

8

P H A T I’T U D E LITERARYMAGAZINE

Perhaps one of the reasons why this is finally happening is because with economic migration, overpopulation and climate change issues arising in the 21st century, our train of thought is transforming into something unfamiliar and uncomfortable. With tsunamis, hurricanes and earthquakes coming in quick successions, its effect on people of color can no longer be ignored. As our conception and experience of nature changes, so too the way we write about it.

In fact, as evidenced by the number of societies, websites, and periodicals devoted to “green” literature, it’s clear that nature writing is developing a strong and enthusiastic following. In light of recent activism and awareness about human impact on the environment and global warming, nature writing is being written with a much broader and personal perspective through literary forms such as poetry and short stories, making environmental issues even more accessible to the general public. One only has to think of the change that resulted from Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, to know that writers are beginning to set a benchmark in the world of nature writing.

As I stated earlier, “Spring has Returned, A Season of Renewal” does not consist exclusively of nature-based works but taken as a whole, I believe the works herein resonate spring and new beginnings. I hope a sense of renewal and an opportunity for growth, whether to create more or better art, or a desire to improve one’s daily life, resonates with you all.

P H A T I ‘ T U D E L I T E R A R Y M A G A Z I N E S P R I N G 2 0 1 1

T H I S & T H A T R A N D O M

T H O U G H T S

&

I D E A S

The C har ris ti cs o Ch araacte cteris risti tics off An ti-In di anism 20 11 Anti-In ti-Indi dianism 201

W

HA T A WEEK. ON SUND AY NIGHT HAT SUNDA NIGHT, we learned Osama bin Laden had been killed

by U.S. forces. We were still questioning what this means for the War on Terror when less than twenty-four hours later, a tweet appeared on my timeline from @CaliNDN alerting us to the fact “Geronimo” was the code name for the U.S. operation.

But wait, it was not the name for the operation. Or maybe it was. Or maybe it was used for several purposes. The New York Times reported that the U.S. military chose to codename Osama, neither Lee nor Custer nor Eisenhower, but rather

(cont’d pg. 12)

J U L I A

V I S I T

O U R

G O O D

F O X

W E B S I T E

A T

W W W . P H A T I T U D E . O R G

S P R I N G H A S R E T U R N E D: A SEASON OF RENEWAL

G

IL SCO TT -HER ON P ASSED away at 62 on SCOTT TT-HER -HERON PASSED May 27 in New York City. He had been

hospitalized at St. Luke’s Hospital where he went to get treatment after returning ill from a touring

Gil Sco tt-H e ro n: Scott-H tt-He An A p p reci on Ap eciaati tio

trip in Europe.

This is an appreciation not only of his cultural contribution but of his life. The words above are originally from the song “The Vulture” on Gil Scott-Heron’s first studio album, “Small Talk at 125th and Lenox.” They’re also used in the song “Your Soul and Mine” on Heron’s last album, “I’m New Here.”

“I’m New Here,” released in 2010, is seen by some as Heron’s most introspective studio album. (cont’d pg. 12)

L

A

R

R

Y

H

A

L

E

S

Bl de Blaa c k Irish Pri Prid

-

I

HA VE AL WAY S BEEN FFASCINA ASCINA TED by Native HAVE ALW ASCINATED American culture ever since I was a child.

Growing up I felt like an outsider, like I never belonged. I knew that there was something different about me, but I just didn’t know what.

While all of my friends at school wore the latest fashions, I proudly strutted around in leather moccasins and long braids in my long dark brown hair. And while most of my friends were interested into after school sports and socializing, I spent most of my time outdoors alone. I have many fond memories of spending hours on end exploring the woods behind my childhood (cont’d pg. 13)

S

U

S

A

N V O L. 3 N O. 1

A

L

L

E

N

11

P H A T I ‘ T U D E L I T E R A R Y M A G A Z I N E S P R I N G 2 0 1 1

B O O K R E V I E W S E X P L O R I N G

L I T E R A T U R E

Our mission is to increase interest in reading by providing cool, short book recommendations in poetry, fiction and nonfiction. To submit reviews, send them to editor@phatitude.org. Happy reading!

P O E T R Y

The New Clean

by Jon Sands Write Bloody Publishing, 2011 (www.writebloody.com) $15.00; 120 pp; ISBN: 978-1935904267

J

ON SANDS’ RISE IN THE POETR Y COMMUNIT Y in POETRY COMMUNITY New York and beyond these past few years has been meteoric. Known primarily as a spoken word artist, he is also a poet, writer, educator, youth worker, thinker and activist. Sands pours all of these assets into his debut poetry collection, The New Clean.

The title of this slim volume, The New Clean, asks the question: Is Sands talking about coming clean into a “new clean”? Or is “the new clean” a euphemism, like “dirty is the new clean?” The poems suggest it could go both ways, but in this collection, Sands introduces himself to readers by “coming clean” about who he is, where he came from, (cont’d pg. 20)

V I S I T

O U R

W E B S I T E

A T

W W W . P H A T I T U D E . O R G

S P R I N G H A S R E T U R N E D: A SEASON OF RENEWAL

Broke on Ice

by Tony Medina Willow Books, 2011 (www.willowlit.com) $14.95; 128pp.; ISBN: 978-0984621217

T

ONY MEDINA ’S LA TES T POETIC OFFERING, MEDINA’S LATES TEST Broke on Ice, chronicles the creative survival skills

of an Everyman named “Broke.” Medina returns from the realm of personal poetry he explored in My Old Man Was Always on the Lam (2010) to the pointed sarcasm characteristic of his work. While My Old Man introspectively foregrounds the personal as the political, specifically the space loss occupies when complicated by poverty and raisin in the sun dreams, Medina uses the character Broke as a vehicle to personalize the political and politicize the personal elements of poverty in contemporary America. (cont’d pg. 21)

The Colors of Nature: Culture, Identity, and the Natural World edited by Alison Hawthorne Deming, Lauret E. Savoy Milkweed Editions; 2011 (www.milkweed.org) $22.00; 368 pp.; ISBN: 978-1571313195

A

MERICAN ENVIR ONMENT AL LITERA TURE has ENVIRONMENT ONMENTAL LITERATURE historically relied heavily on the perspectives of European Americans, often ignoring other groups, namely people of color. Colors of Nature is a collection of writings by thirty contributors of widely diverse backgrounds who share environmental and ecological experiences that explores their relationship with the natural world, and how their lifeways, identity and community are tied to the environment from which they came or where they currently live. First published in 2002, this second edition arrived online and in bookstores in February 2011. (cont’d pg. 22) V O L. 3 NO.1

17

Black on Earth: African American Ecoliterary Traditions

by Kimberly N. Ruffin University of Georgia Press, 2010; www.ugapress.org $22.95; 192 pp.; ISBN 9780820337203

A

DECADE INT O THE 2 1S T CENTUR Y, it has INTO 21S 1ST CENTURY become clear that environmental degradation,

species extinction and massive pollution are the biggest hazards facing life on planet earth. These hazards have a long colonial and imperial history which continues to affect our world. But if planetary environmental issues affect the entire planet, why are they represented in literature written primarily by white people when in fact, eighty percent of the world is not?

Black on Earth is one of several recently published books that address this issue. While African American (cont’d pg. 23)

Suck on The Marrow

by Camille T. Dungy Red Hen Press 2010; www.redhen.org $18.95; 88 pp; ISBN 978-1597094689

E

MP ATHY IS SOMETIMES DIFFICUL T to evoke in MPA DIFFICULT people unless you have a very keen sense of painting the imagery and emotion with words. Camille Dungy does this well in her collection Suck on the Marrow, and the images all refer to fighting and strength, especially in adversity and in the face of slavery.

The human need for knowledge, love, understanding everything is there; even though there was such separation and exclusion during this time in history, Dungy captures the human heart and soul in her characters while illustrating the rawness of their suffering with gracefully blatant and rebellious passion. (cont’d pg. 24)

18

P H A T I’T U D E LITERARYMAGAZINE

S P R I N G H A S R E T U R N E D: A SEASON OF RENEWAL

The Voting Booth After Dark: Despicable.

Embarrassing. Repulsive.

by Vanessa Libertad Garcia Fiat Libertad, 2009 $10.95; 92 pp.; ISBN: 9780984067701

T

HE VO TING BOO TH AFTER DARK: DESPICABLE. VOTING BOOTH EMBARRASSING. REPULSIVE. is a collection of

short stories, creative narrative, and poetry by Vanessa Libertad Garcia. Published in 2009, this short yet witty account of the lives of several gay and lesbian “club kids” brings to surface some truth which not many twenty-somethings would be willing to utter aloud, realizations that so many people search and feel lost, and how the 2008 elections affected this particular small group. (cont’d pg. 25)

Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry edited by Camille T. Dungy Univ. of Georgia Press, 2009; www.ugapress.org $24.9; 432 pp.; ISBN-978-0-8203-3431-8

A

LTHOUGH BLA CK NA TURE IS “. . . the first antholBLACK NATURE ogy to focus on nature writing by African American poets . . .” the book does not confine “nature” to a monolith, as is often done with African American literature, but instead opens the literary lens to a wider definition of nature; allowing the culture to state and own its realities and metaphors. Black Nature contains 180 poems by 93 poets, with notables such as Gwendolyn Brooks, Rita Dove, Yusef Komunyakaa, Phillis Wheatley, Sterling Brown, and June Jordan. There are also many poets who carry the theme into the 21st century; such as (cont’d pg. 26) V O L. 3 N O. 1

19

Spring is one of the four temperate seasons, the transition period between winter and summer. You don’t have to look far to see signs of spring.

From the budding of the trees and the warming of the temperatures to the animals coming out of their winter hideouts, there seems to be a promise of new birth and color in the springtime air. The term is also used more generally as a metaphor for the start of better times, and is broadly associated to ideas of rebirth, renewal and regrowth. As we celebrate spring as a season of renewal, we present works by Debra Kang Dean, who shares her connection with ecology and nature; while Petra Newman and Kenda Robertson provide their insights on spring and how the ARTWORK: Lorraine Miller Nuzzo Miller Nuzzo seasonARTWORK: impacts Lorraine them personally. — Gabrielle David

ARTWORK: Travis Smithlin

T

OO EXPENSIVE. Don’t waste. These were words that my parents, generous as

they were, used like mantras when I was growing up, and their apparent linking of

cost and waste created in me the reactive desire for conspicuous consumption, which meant not only buying things, but feeling that I could afford to throw things away.

Before recycling became fashionable, my parents were already recycling, keeping any and everything that might be reused: glass bottles, empty cans, milk cartons, plastic bags, aluminum foil, Styrofoam or plastic deli containers, newspapers, phone books, fabric scraps — though they did throw out Chinese take-out containers. (cont’d pg. 30)

D

E

B

R

A

K

A

N

G

D

E

A

N

I

COULDN'T SLEEP, I felt restless and my mind was already on the tasks of the day.

Not wanting to disturb the household I tiptoed into the kitchen to fix myself a cup of coffee. I enjoy the quiet and solitude before the day begins; I selfishly hoard that silent moment for myself. With a steaming mug of coffee in hand, I sit on the stairs of the deck surrounded by compressed shadows. My senses are suddenly alerted to the beauty of spring.

Spring arrives like a debutante, bedecked to beguile the senses. The moisture in the air is a mist, a vapor that settles like a bride's veil floating gently over the land. Translucent beads of moisture heavy with the scent of the earth, lingers, dispersing its rich, sweet fragrance. I watch the sun slowly emerge; hovering over the vapor, warming it, lifting the veil and kissing the land beneath.

The beauty resonates through my soul. The earth becomes a bride each spring. She stretches her arms to the sun, just as the trees reach for the sun after the long winter sleep. The air is alive with a symphony of birds; warm breezes carry sweet perfumes from the fields and early blooms. Bees dart from flower to flower and butterflies sail gently above like a living mobile strung from heaven.

The long cessation is over and life awakens. Children play in puddles left by the melting snow and scramble together on the newly exposed patch of green grass. Shiny cans hang from the sugar maples collecting nature’s sweet nectar. Warm breezes sigh over newly plowed fields, and soft spring rain moistens the land making the seeds to swell and explode.

Everywhere life is revealing itself with a flurry of activity. Spring cleaning puts a fresh sparkle into the house after being closed off all winter. It is time to open the windows and let spring breezes rush through the house to invigorate the life within. Summer clothes are unpacked and winter things stored with moth-balls in the attic. The barbecue is uncovered and snow pushers and toboggans are locked away.

Springtime is a new beginning. It’s a love story that extracts the desire in us.

Spring creates inspiration, stimulates imagination and evokes dreams. Spring is love and romance, weddings, and births and optimism for happily ever after. Spring is when love is new and innocent, when hearts sing that timeless melody only lovers hear.

P

E

T

R

A

N

E

W

M

A

N

T

HE BIG WINDOW'S ICY COATING is long gone and a warm breeze has blown away the winter chill. I open the window wide to breathe in the clean, fresh air that finds my appreciative face.

Looking out over my little world, I see shades of purple, yellow and red, which dot the young, green growth just beginning to envelope the land. I long to be in its thickness. I ache to lie in the soft new blades of grass and feel the clover between my toes, to smell the perfume of hyacinths and jasmine, and to taste the sweetness of the cherry blossoms.

The birds chatter endlessly about their winter vacations, and sing melodic praises to this season of hope. They soar over treetops and swoop down to taste the fruits of the season. Two playful squirrels chase each other around and around a big oak tree that is just starting to bud.

Butterflies flutter and float from bloom to blossom, collecting their sweet rewards. It is a scene that has played out for many years, even before I gazed out this window. And yet somehow, it hasn't lost its puritan charm.

As I lean a little farther out the window to see where laughter is coming from, I spy two children riding their bikes up the street. Their happy voices echo throughout the quietness of the day. I ponder where they are going and watch until they are out of my sight. A man throws a ball as his two dogs romp in the open spaces to fetch it. A woman pushes a baby stroller while a pink balloon tied to the carriage waves freely in the wind.

The warming rays of the low-hanging sun stream through the bud-filled trees displaying filigreed images across the sidewalk. A glorious mixture of sun and shade add contrast to the subtle hues of the day. The tender leaves rustle in the wind creating the welcoming sound of new life.

I catch my breath and sigh as nature's ravenous beauty overcomes me. To behold the awakening world in such splendor is truly a blessing.

Grasping the sides of my wheelchair, I am reminded of my physical limitations.A view skewed by legs that can't walk past the thick trees or follow the trailing voices. But when I put my face to the open window and close my eyes, something in the breeze awakens me and sets me free.

I become like the birds. I understand their language. I feel their renewed energy and with my imaginary wings, I can fly.

I sail over the trees, into the sun and rest in the clover. And for the first time in many years, it tickles my toes.

ARTWORK: Travis Smithlin

K

E

N

D

A

R

O

B

E

R

T

S

O

N

A

DYNAMIC AND WELL-ROUNDED INDIVIDUAL, James Piatt’s ancestry is an intriguing combination of French, Dutch, Pawnee Indian, and English. He spent his early years excelling academically as well as athletically, becoming the youngest Eagle Scout in the history of Santa Barbara County, and spending three years of his high school career as Class President.

Against the advice and criticism of others, Piatt and his wife, Sandy, married at 20 and 18 respectively.

They’ve been happily married for 56 years now, and continue to celebrate a wonderful life together. After dropping out of college to support his young family, he became an

ARTWORK: Kari McBride

electro-mechanical draftsman for Aerophysics Development and aided in the design of the Dart Missile System.

After several years, Piatt was drafted into the US Army and was on the Regimental Drill Team. He was discharged after 2 years and decided to further his education. He earned his BS with concentrations in Electronics and Physical Science at California State Polytechnic University, graduating on the Dean’s List.

For the next few years, Piatt worked at Douglass Aircraft as an Operations Engineer and later at AVCO as a Project Engineer. He and his wife had two children during this time as well: Wallace and Ann, both grown up now and living their own productive lives. (cont’d pg. 56)

J E N N I F E R — C R Y S T A L

J O H N S O N

I

N THE VAST REALM OF NATURE WRITING — nonfiction writing with a focus on nature and the environment - the contributions of writers of color have been overlooked. However, these points-of-view have the potential to widen the breadth of eco-criticism and environmental writings. With African-American nature writing being such a rarely noticed art form, it has come to the attention of several scholars and organizations that American culture needs to be more informed, open, and accepting of nature writing by African-Americans in the present as well as in the past. Because there have been so many Caucasian writers and poets in the Eco-literature genre, AfricanAmericans have often felt alienated from nature, perceiving an invisible division between their culture and nature.

Though Black on Earth, Kimberly Ruffin’s examination on African American ecological insights isn't the first book of its kind, it most definitely is an enjoyable read as well as an educational and balanced book about the area of Black nature writing and how people as a whole can come together with nature as opposed to constantly feeling a rift between different cultures.

J E N N I F E R — C R Y S T A L

(cont’d pg. 62)

J O H N S O N

ARTWORK: Kari McBride

D

URING THE SPRING OF 1937 1937, Paris became the great staging area for journalists on their way to the Spanish Civil War, and a centre

for thousands of disaffected artists and intellectuals, mainly from Germany and Italy, who had no intention of going anywhere further south than a cafe table on the Boulevard du Montparnasse.

After arriving in Paris with the bullfighter, Sidney Franklin, Ernest Hemingway spent most of his time at the American Embassy trying to persuade the rather bored representative of the State Department to issue Franklin with a visa for Spain. Hemingway told the bullfighter not to worry, that everything would be okay. Franklin was refused his visa. Disappointed, the two men then headed for a lunch date with the journalist Janet Flanner, and her lesbian lover, Solita Solano (one-time theatre critic, Sarah Wilkinson) at La Coupole. Flanner always remembered that Franklin, because of a recent goring in Mexico, sat rather gingerly on the edge of his chair as he pecked, like some small exotic bird, at his food, with his knife held aloft like a matador’s sword. They were strange, surreal times. (cont’d pg. 66)

S

T

E

V

E

N

E

W

M

A

N

ARTWORK: Lorraine Miller Nuzzo

IT WAS 7:25 P.M. on a Wednesday, and the young Raines brothers were in the kitchen, staring down at a sink full of dirty dishes. Brooklyn stood on a little blonde wood stool so he could reach over and into the sink. The stool had both Brooklyn and his older brother Derrick’s initials carved into it, a gift from the boys’ on again, off again Uncle Sly. A bright yellow clock with Crayola-crayon hands and numbers written in squiggly, child-like print hung behind the sink just over the window. Brooklyn’s mother loved that clock. When Brooklyn was two, and Derrick six, they had chosen it as their Mother’s Day gift. Now, seven years later, it still hung in the same place, having only ever come down off the wall to have its battery replaced. The time was now 7:27. Brooklyn sighed.

“What’s your problem?” Derrick asked, handing his little brother soapy plates that needed to be rinsed.

“I want to watch ‘Nightbreed’ on HBO before we have to go to bed,” Brooklyn whined.

“Is that that movie with those underground monsters and shit? Oh! I mean . . .”

I

Brooklyn nearly fell off his little stool at the sound of the word. They looked around in wild excitement, certain their mother, or worse, their father, would appear around the corner at any moment to smite them both for Derrick’s offense. Brooklyn’s wet little fingers clung to the edge of the sink as he held his breath. When nothing happened, though, Brooklyn started to giggle, and Derrick quickly joined in. In a moment, the brothers were laughing so hard that Brooklyn lost his grip on the sink and fell backwards off the stool, crashing to the floor.

“What was that?!” their mother bellowed from the living room.

“Nothing! Brooklyn just fell off his stool!”

“I’m alright!” (cont’d pg. 120)

A

S LORRAINE LAY IN THE PEACEFUL quiet of her living room on

her favorite couch, she imagined that a very tall and strong man was

rubbing her back on the shores of Jamaica as she sipped a Mai Tai

(or whatever you call those fruity drinks with the umbrella in the glass). In her

fantasy, she wore a yellow shirt with ruffles, a rainbow colored hat, a pair of those silly shades that were in the shape of sunflowers, and her toes were painted fire engine red with white tips. As he rubbed her back with his huge calloused hands that were rough from years of back breaking labor like chopping trees (or whatever those men in Jamaica had to do when work was scarce and their mamas needed help with the bills), she said, “Lower, Sookie,” and right as he got to the small of her back, there was a knock on the door. Lorraine’s eyes flew open, and there went Sookie, the beach, her Mai Tai, and her back rub.

She lay there for a second and had to fan herself twice before she put a foot on the floor and searched around for her house slippers. She got up and walked through her spacious living room and wide hallway, inhaling the scent of Pine Sol the whole way and smiling at her new wood floors (a present to herself). The knocking persisted and normally, Lorraine would be cursing at the person on the other side of the door to wait a God damn minute, but her recent retirement and upcoming trip to Jamaica had her floating on air. She was humming her favorite church song, “The Blood,” and picking something out of her fingernail when she opened the door and saw her three grandchildren standing on the porch looking as pitiful as ever. She stuck her neck outside of the screen door to look for Vyetta’s beat up Buick but she didn’t see it.

She figured that her daughter was on her way to get her hair done or something and had dropped the kids off quickly to avoid having to speak about the money she owed her.

She asked Peewee, the rascal of the bunch, “Where’s your Mama?” (cont’d pg. 126)

Q

U

A

N

I

E

M

I

T

C

H

E

L

L

ARTWORK: Lorraine Miller Nuzzo

P H A T I ‘ T U D E L I T E R A R Y M A G A Z I N E S P R I N G 2 0 1 1

CONTRIBUTORS M E E T W H O

T H E P O E T S M A K E I T

& W R I T E R S H A P P E N!

Susan Allen is a Native American writer who resides in Lewsiton, Maine.

Eric Barbera is an Editorial Intern at phati’tude Literary Magazine. He is currently an English major at the Macaulay Honors College at Hunter and a native of Jackson Heights, Queens. He has worked as a reporter with the Queens Courier chain of newspapers; as a featured columnist for Aspire magazine, and as a guest contributor on WKRD sports talk radio. He also edited and designed his high school’s yearbook, winning a state award in 2010 for its design.

He has worked for the Garden Writing Project, a program that fosters the growth of young writers in Queens, and Kaplan Test Preparation. More recently, he has worked as a copywriter and researcher for InTheMO, a worldwide media production company Walter Bargen was appointed Missouri’s first poet laureate in 2008. He is the author of more than a dozen collections of poetry including Days Like This Are Necessary: New and Selected Poems (BkMk Pr. of the Univ. of Missouri-Kansas, 2009). Bargen’s poetry and fiction have appeared in over one hundred magazines, including American Literary Review, American Letters & Commentary, Beloit Poetry Journal, Denver Quarterly, Georgia Review, Missouri Review, New Letters, Pleiades, Poetry Northwest, River Styx, Sycamore Review, and Witness. He is the recipient of numerous awards including a National Endowment for the Arts poetry fellowship; the Chester H. Jones Foundation poetry prize; and a William Rockhill Nelson Award. Bargen has worked at University of Missouri for more than 20 years as senior coordinator for the Assessment Resource Center, a department in the university’s College of Education. www.walterbargen.com L. E. Bryan is a poet and short fiction writer whose work has appeared in the Wisconsin Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, The Seattle Times and in various other literary and commercial publications. He has recieved awards from the Jerome Foundation, Seattle Arts Commission, and the Paul G. Allen Charitable Foundation. Bryan is currently revising a collection of poems entitled, Hitchiking Through The Revolution 1965-1972, and working on his third book of short fiction, Throwing Down Gravel.

Natalie Jeanne Champagne is a writer who dwells in British Columbia Canada. She has published poetry in the following anthologies: The Third Parallel, The Poets Sanctuary, Breaking Light Magazine, The Echoes Anthology and Island Writer, among others. Her forthcoming memoir, The Third Sunrise (www.thethirdsunrise.com), will be published

by The Key Publishing House in 2012.

Karen Chau is an Editorial Intern at phati’tude Literary Magazine. She is originally from Allentown, Pennsylvania, and recently graduated from Brandeis University. She has previously been published in Racialicious.

Wyn Cooper is a poet and songwriter who was raised in Michigan and later attended the University of Utah and Hollins College. He has taught at the University of Utah, Bennington College, Marlboro College and at The Frost place

V I S I T

O U R

W E B S I T E

A T

W W W . P H A T I T U D E . O R G

S P R I N G H A S R E T U R N E D: A SEASON OF RENEWAL Festival of Poetry, where he now serves on the advisory board. He has published four books of poems: Chaos is the New Calm (BOA Editions, 2010), Postcards from the Interior (BOA Editions, 2005), The Way Back (White Pine Pr., 2000), and The Country of Here Below (Ahsahta Pr., 1987). His work has appeared in more than 60 publications, including Poetry, Ploughshares, Slate, Crazyhorse, Agni and The Southern Review. His poems are included in 25 anthologies of contemporary poetry, including Poetry: An Introduction (Sixth Edition), The Mercury Reader, Outsiders, and Ecstatic Occasions, Expedient Forms: 85 Leading Contemporary Poets Select and Comment on Their Poems (Univ. of Michigan Pr., 1996). In 1993, “Fun,” a poem from his first book, was turned into Sheryl Crow’s Grammywinning song “All I Wanna Do.” Cooper has served as editor of Quarterly West and worked for the Harriet Monroe Poetry Institute, a think tank run by the Poetry Foundation of Chicago. He is one of the organizers of the Brattleboro Literary Festival in Brattleboro, Vermont and currently resides in Halifax, Vermont. www.wyncooper.com Gabrielle David, Editor-in-Chief of phati’tude Literary Magazine, is a multimedia artist that has worked as a desktop publisher, photographer, artist, video editor and musician. David has published several essays on multicultural literature and published the poetry collections: this is me, a collection of poems & things (CCI Books, 1994); and spring has returned & i am renewed (CCI Books, 1995). Her work has published in Paterson Literary Review, Journal of New Jersey Poets, AIM Magazine, and phati’tude Literary Magazine. She is the Executive Director of the Intercultural Alliance of Artists & Scholars, Inc. (IAAS), a NY-based nonprofit organization that promotes multicultural literature and literacy, which publishes phati’tude Literary Magazine.

Susan Deer Cloud is a Métis Catskill Indian of Mohawk/Seneca/Blackfoot lineage. She has a B.A. and M.A. Literature & Creative Writing from Binghamton University and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Goddard College.

Her recent books are The Last Ceremony and Car Stealer (FootHills Pub.), and Braiding Starlight (Split Oak Pr.). Deer Cloud’s poems and stories have published in numerous journals and magazines, including American Indian Culture & Research Journal, Yellow Medicine Review, Many Mountains Moving, Exquisite Corpse, and Paterson Literary Review, among others. Her work has also appeared in the anthologies Sister Nations: an Anthology of Native Women Writers on Community (Minnesota Historical Society Pr., 2002); Unsettling America: An Anthology of Contemporary Multicultural Poetry (Penguin, 1994); and Identity Lessons: Contemporary Writing About Learning to Be American (Penguin, 1999). Deer Cloud’s honors include a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship, a New York State Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, and a Native American Wordcraft Circle Editor’s Award for her multicultural anthology Confluence. She is currently editing the Re-Matriation Chapbook Series of Indigenous Poetry for FootHills Publishing, as well as an all Native issue for on-line journal Big Bridge, to be published in January 2012. Her book of poems, Borscht Belt Indian, is forthcoming.

Debra Kang Dean has published three collections of poetry: Precipitates (BOA, 2003), News of Home (BOA, 1998), which was co-winner of the New England Poetry Club’s Sheila Margaret Motton Award, and Back to Back (NCWN, 1997), which won the Harperprints Poetry Chapbook Competition. Her work has appeared in many journals and a number of anthologies, including The Colors of Nature: Culture, Identity, and the Natural World (Milkweed, 2011), The Best American Poetry 1999, The New American Poets: A Bread Loaf Anthology (2000), Urban Nature: Poems about Wildlife in the City (2000), and Yobo: Korean American Writing in Hawai‘i (2003). Dean is on the faculty of Indiana University’s Asian American Studies Program and Spalding University’s brief-residency MFA in Writing Program. www.debrakangdean.com Morris Dickstein is Distinguished Professor of English at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and senior fellow of the Center for the Humanities, which he founded in 1993 and directed for seven years. He is a widely published reviewer and critic, perhaps best known for his recent book on the 1930s, Dancing in the Dark: A Cultural History of the Great Depression (2009). His other books include Gates of Eden: American Culture in the Sixties (1977, 1997), Leopards in the Temple: The Transformation of American Fiction, 1945–1970 (2002), and A Mirror in the Roadway: Literature and the Real World (2005). His essays and reviews have appeared in numerous publications; and was a founder and board member (1983–1989) of the National Book Critics Circle and Vice-Chair of the New York Council for the Humanities from 1997 to 2001. He was a contributing editor of Partisan Review from 1972 to 2003 and served as president of the Association of Literary Scholars and Critics in 2006–2007.

Sharon Erby recently graduated from the M.F.A. Program in Creative Writing at Wilkes University, Wilkes-Barre, PA, where she was awarded the Norris Church Mailer Fellowship. Her creative work has appeared or is forthcoming in Kaleidoscope, Feminist Studies, Slice, Melusine, or Woman in the 21st Century, Chaffey Review, Glossolalia, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, and Touch. She is currently an Adjunct Professor of English at Wilson College, Chambersburg, PA, a small liberal arts college dedicated to the education of women.

V O L. 3 N O. 1

147

Julia Good Fox is an instructor at the College of Indigenous and American Indian Studies at Haskell Indian Nations University and blogs regularly on her writings and lectures about politics, culture, and Indian Country at www.juliagoodfox.com.

Rachel Hadas is a poet, teacher, essayist, and translator. She is the author of numerous books of poetry, essays, and translations, most recently co-edited the anthology, The Greek Poets: Homer to the Present (Norton 2009); her latest book of poems is The Ache of Appetite (Copper Beech Press 2010); and her most recent essay collection Classics: Essays (Textos Books, 2007). Forthcoming is a book of prose about her husband’s illness entitled Strange Relation: A Memoir of Marriage, Dementia, and Poetry (Paul Dry Books). Her translations include writers Tibullus, Baudelaire, and the Greek poet Konstantine Karyotakis. Her honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, Ingram Merrill Foundation Grants, and an Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. She has taught English at the Newark campus of Rutgers University where, as of 2006, she is the Board of Governors Professor of English. www.rachelhadas.com Larry Hales is a community activist and writer. He is an organizer for the Bail Out the People Movement and the youth group Fight Imperialism Stand Together (F.I.S.T.); a member of the CUNY Mobilization Network and the Troops Out Now Coalition. He is also a contributing editor with Workers World newspaper.

Chloe Honum grew up in New Zealand. She holds degrees from Sarah Lawrence College and the University of Arkansas. Her poems have appeared in AGNI, The Bellingham Review, The Paris Review, and Poetry, and were included in Best New Poets 2008 and Best New Poets 2010. She is the recipient of a Ruth Lilly Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation.

Hope Houghton has published in various poetry collections and literary journals, including Literary House Review, Hudson View Poetry Digest, England’s Poetry Monthly, The Write Room Literary Magazine, and Write From Wrong Literary Magazine. She was recently nominated for the 2010 Pushcart Poetry Prize for her work in the Literary House Review, and was included in the 2010 Hudson View’s International Poetry Digest, available online.

Joe Jiménez is a poet and educator currently living in San Antonio, Texas. His work has appeared in the queer Latino poetry anthology, Mariposas: A Modern Anthology of Queer Latino Poetry (Floricanto Press, 2009).

Christopher D. Johnson was raised in Central Florida and currently resides in Los Angeles. He studied English at Duke University and Professional Writing at the University of Southern California. He is currently a student affairs professional at California State University, Los Angeles, and his work has previously appeared in Onomatopoeia Magazine.

Jennifer-Crystal Johnson, Associate Editor of phati’tude Literary Magazine, is originally from Germany, but was raised all over. She has published one novella under her former last name, The Outside Girl: Perception is Reality (Publish America, 2005) and, more recently, a poetry book, Napkin Poetry (Broken Publications, 2010). Her poetry has appeared in various anthologies including The Lightness of Being (International Library of Poetry, 2000), Theatre of the Mind (Noble House, 2003), Invoking the Muse (Noble House, 2004), and Our 100 Most Famous Poets (Famous Poets Press, 2004). She is a freelance writer and editor, and is based in the Pacific Northwest. www.soulvomit.com Yuri Kageyama is a poet, fiction writer and journalist, whose latest book is The New and Selected Yuri: Writing from Peeling till Now (Ishmael Reed Pub. Co., 2011). Her works have appeared in anthologies and literary magazines such as Pow-Wow: Charting the Fault Lines in the American Experience, Konch, Breaking Silence, Greenfield Review, On a Bed of Rice, San Francisco Stories, Beyond Rice, Y’Bird and Stories We Hold Secret. She has translated works by Kenzaburo Oe and Hiromi Ito, and for Carla Blank and Robert Wilson’s “KOOL: Dancing in My Mind,” a performance-art homage to Japanese dancer Suzushi Hanayagi. She is a magna cum laude graduate of Cornell University and has an M.A. from the University of California, Berkeley. She lives in Tokyo. http://yuri-kageyama.blogspot.com Suji Kwock Kim is a Korean American poet who also writes texts for choral compositions and a multimedia play.

She received a bachelor’s degree from Yale University and an M.F.A. from the University of Iowa. Her first poetry collection, Notes from the Divided Country (Louisiana State Univ. Pr., 2003), was the recipient of the Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets, and the Bay Area Book Reviewers Award, among other distinctions. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Poetry, Paris Review, The Nation, The New Republic, DoubleTake, Yale Review, Salmagundi, New England Review, Southwest Review, Harvard Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, AsianAmerican Poetry: The Next Generation. She has taught at Sarah Lawrence College, Drew University, and Stanford University, as well as at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and the Wesleyan Writers’ Conference. Kim divides her time between San Francisco and New York. www.sujikwockkim.com Jay Leeming is the author of Dynamite on a China Plate, a book of poems published by The Backwaters Press.

His poems have appeared in a variety of magazines including Ploughshares, The Gettysburg Review, Poetry East and Black Warrior Review. He has been a featured reader at Butler University, the Omega Institute, Robert Bly’s Great

148

P H A T I’T U D E LITERARYMAGAZINE

S P R I N G H A S R E T U R N E D: A SEASON OF RENEWAL Mother Conference and the Woodstock Poetry Festival. Leeming is the recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and is currently serving as Poet Laureate of Tompkins County. He lives and teaches in Ithaca, New York. www.jayleeming.com Marjorie Maddox is the Director of Creative Writing and Professor of English at Lock Haven University, Pennsylvania. Her poetry collections include Perpendicular As I (Sandstone Book Award); Transplant, Transport, Transubstantiation (WordTech Editions); Weeknights at the Cathedral (Yellowglen Prize); When the Wood Clacks Out Your Name: Baseball Poems (Redgreene Press); six chapbooks, and over 350 poems, stories, and essays in journals and anthologies. In addition, she is the co-editor, with Jerry Wemple, of Common Wealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania (Penn State Pr., 2005); and has two children’s books, A Crossing of Zebras: Animal Packs in Poetry (Boyds Mills Press/ WordSong, 2008); and Rules of the Game: Baseball Poems (Boyds Mills Press/WordSong, 2009). Her numerous honors include Cornell University’s Chasen Award, the Paumanok Poetry Award, an Academy of American Poets Prize, the Seattle Review’s Bentley Prize for Poetry, a Breadloaf Scholarship, and four Pushcart Prize nominations.

Kari McBride is a Graphic Arts Intern at phati’tude Literary Magazine. She is currently working towards her Associates in Graphic Design at Houston Community College, and plans to transfer to the University of Houston for a degree in Fine Arts. McBride has a background in photo editing, newspaper layout, photography, and blogging, and currently does freelance work creating brand identities, logos, business cards, and invitations. She is currently working in Houston as a consultant to create an online presence for an independent fashion and graphic designer. http:// about.me/karimcbride, Nathan McClain currently lives and works in Los Angeles. His poetry has appeared or are forthcoming in Tar River Poetry, Poet Lore, New Zoo Poetry Review, Sojourn, Columbia Poetry Review, Cave Wall, Nimrod, Water-Stone Review, DIAGRAM, and Best New Poets 2010. He formerly served on the editorial staff of three candles and is a recent Pushcart Prize nominee. McClain lives and works in Southern California.

Jen Palmares Meadows is a Filipina American writer living in the Sacramento, California area. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in journals and anthologies such as Denver Quarterly, Tayo Literary Magazine, Walang Hiya: Literature Taking Risks Toward Liberatory Practice (Carayan Pr., 2010) and Filipinas Magazine. Meadows earned her undergraduate degree from San Francisco State University and her M.A. in Creative Writing from California State University Sacramento, where she received a Bazzanella Literary Award for her short story “Unripe Bananas.” www.jenpalmaresmeadows.com Tony Medina, born and raised in the South Bronx, is the author of 14 books for adults and children. His recent work includes the poetry collections, Broke On Ice (Willow Books/Aquarius Pr., 2011), My Old Man Was Always on the Lam (2010); and the children’s book, I and I: Bob Marley, with illustrator Jesse Joshua Watson (2009). Medina was featured in Poets Against the Killing Fields (Trilingual Pr., 2007) and is an advisory editor for Nikki Giovanni’s anthology, Hip Hop Speaks to Children (Sourcebooks, 2008). His poetry, fiction and essays have appeared in over eighty publications and two CD compilations. Medina earned his M.A. and Ph.D in Poetry and American and African American Literature from Binghamton University, SUNY, and is currently Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Howard University in Washington, D.C. His poetry collection, An Onion of Wars (Third World Pr.) and children’s book. The President Looks Like Me (Just Us Books) is forthcoming. http://tonymedina.wordpress.com Jesús Papoleto Meléndez is one of the original founders of the Nuyorican poets’ movement. He is a recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry (2001); an Artist for Community Enrichment (ACE) Award from the Bronx Council on the Arts, New York (1995); and a COMBO (Combined Arts of San Diego)-NEA Fellowship in Literature (1988). Meléndez has spent the past 30 years working as a poetry-facilitator working in the public schools, coordinating successful poetry/creative writing workshops impacting the lives of thousands of young people. The author of the poetry collections, Casting Long Shadows (NY, 1970); Have You Seen Liberation (NY, 1971); Street Poetry & Other Poems (Barlenmir Hse, NY 1972); and Concertos On Market Street (1993).

Quanie Mitchell has a B.A. in English from Louisiana State University, and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from San Jose State University, where she was the recipient of the James Phelan Literary Award for fiction and the Louis King Thore Scholarship for Creative Writing. In 2008 she won first place in the BEA (Broadcast Education Association) National Student Scriptwriting Competition. www.quaniemitchell.com Shivon Mozaffar is originally from Surrey, England and currently resides in Spring Hill, Florida. Her work has appeared in Pasco Hernando Community College (PHCC) MÖBIUS Literary Magazine. She graduated from PHCC with an Associate in Arts degree, and is currently working on her Bachelors degree in English at the University of Florida in Gainesville.

V O L. 3 N O. 1

149

Richard Murphy has published the chapbooks Great Grandfather, Family Secret by, Hunting and Pecking, and Phoems for Mobile Vices, and the poetry collection, The Apple in the Monkey Tree. (Codhill Pr., 2008.). Murphy received the 2008 Gival Press Poetry Award for his book length manuscript, “Voyeur.” His poems have appeared in Rolling Stone, Poetry, Grand Street, Trespass, New Letters, Pank, Segue, Big Bridge, Pemmican, foam:e, and Confrontation; and essays in The International Journal of the Humanities, Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning, Reconfigurations: A Journal for Poetics Poetry / Literature and Culture, Fringe, and Journal of Ecocriticism. He lives in Marblehead, M.A. and teaches writing at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Petra Newman writes for Helium.com and is the winner of the Pulitzer Center Citizen Journalism Award in 2008.

Her articles have also appeared in Weeder’s Digest. She resides in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada.

Steve Newman is a freelance writer, historian, playwright, director, actor and publishrt living and wokring in Shakespeare’s Stratford-upon-Avon.

Lorraine Miller Nuzzo has been Curator, Art Director of phati’tude Literary Magazine and “phati’tude-related” projects since 1997. While pursuing her professional career, Nuzzo studied painting with Mary Nagin and Carole Jay in New York; and with Tim Holden in Italy. She has held exhibitions at MIB and BJ Spoke Gallery; and is also a former partner of “hotshots unlimited photography,” which held an exhibit at the Langston Hughes Library. She holds a Master’s degree in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from Hofstra University and a Bachelors degree in Psychology with a minor in Art from SUNY, Empire State. www.rainynuzzo.com Amanda Ostrove is an Editorial Intern of phati’tude Literary Magazine. She is currently a junior at Skidmore College where she is double majoring in English and Dance. She received her high school's "Excellence in English" award and currently works in the writing center at Skidmore. She is studying English at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland in the Fall.

Peter Pereira is a physician, a poet, and the founder of Floating Bridge Press. His work has appeared in numerous publications, including Poetry, the Virginia Quarterly Review, and several anthologies, including Best American Poetry and To Come to Light: Perspectives on Chronic Illness in Modern Literature. Pereira has received the “Discovery”/The Nation and Hayden Carruth prizes, and has been a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award.

James G. Piatt lives in Santa Ynez, a small rural community in central California. He has published over a hundred poems as well as sixteen short stories, and eight academic essays. Some of his work has appeared in Literary House Review, phati’tude Literary Magazine, Tower Journal, Green Silk Journal, WestWard Quarterly, Taj Mahal Review, The Penwood Review, The Cynic Magazine, Medulla Riview, Pens on Fire, Suspense Magazine, Long Story Short, NASSP Bulletin, Educational Digest, NMA Manage and many others. He earned a B.S. and M.A. from California State Polytechnic University in San Luis Obispo, and a P.h.D from Brigham Young University. Prior to becoming an educator, Piatt was once a Thor launch conductor and eventually a project engineer in charge of atomic bombs for the Minuteman Missile. Throughout his career, Piatt designed and founded an alternative school for ‘At Risk’ students during the turbulent sixties; was a high school principal; a junior college Dean and was in charge of four Masters of Education programs at a university. He has taught chemistry, physics, Earth Science, and electronics at the high school level, philosophy, psychology, and engineering mathematics, at the junior college level and over twenty different courses in education at the M.A. level. He is now retired and spends his time writing poetry and short stories.

Kenda Robertson was born and raised in rural Missouri, and earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Journalism at the College of the Ozarks, Point Lookout, Missouri. As a freelance writer, she has written for the Orlando Sentinel, Orange Appeal Magazine, ASPCA Magazine and various websites. Robertson currently resides in Orlando, Florida.

Jon Sands, Editor of phati’tude Literary Magazine, has been a full-time teaching and performing artist since 2007. He is a recipient of the 2009 New York City-LouderARTS fellowship grant, and has represented New York City multiple times at the National Poetry Slam, subsequently becoming an NPS finalist. He is currently the Director of Poetry and Arts Education Programming at the Positive Health Project, a syringe exchange center located in Midtown Manhattan, as well as a Youth Mentor with Urban Word-NYC. Sands’ poems have appeared in decomP, Suss, The Literary Bohemian, Spindle Magazine, The November 3rd Club, and many others. Sands recently published his debut portry collection, The New Clean (Write Bloody Pub., 2011). www.jonsands.com Ray Succre has published in a variety of publications across dozens of countries. His novels Tatter-demalion (2008) and Amphisbaena (2009), both through Cauliay, are widely available in print. An ebook of poetry, Other Cruel Things (Differentia Pr., 2009), is currently available for free online. He has been published in Aesthetica, BlazeVOX, and Pank, among others. He has been nominated for the Pushcart twice, and is also a winner of the Adroitly Placed

150

P H A T I’T U D E LITERARYMAGAZINE

S P R I N G H A S R E T U R N E D: A SEASON OF RENEWAL Word Award, for spoken word. His novel, A Fine Young Day, is forthcoming. Succre currently resides on the southern Oregon coast. http://raysuccre.blogspot.com/ Don Thackrey grew up in rural Nebraska but now lives in Dexter, MI, where he is retired from teaching and administering at the University of Michigan. Thackrey spent his formative years on farms and ranches in the Nebraska Sandhills, and most of his formal poems reflect that experience. His main interest these days is trying to get the hang of formal verse by reading and writing it.

Sheree Renée Thomas is an award-winning writer, editor, small publisher, educator, and visual artist whose work has appeared in numerous publications and literary journals, She is the co-publisher of the literary journal, Anansi: Fiction of the African Diaspora and founder of Wanganegresse Press, editor of the groundbreaking black science fiction series, Dark Matter, named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and winner of the World Fantasy Award. Her stories and poems appear in Mojo: Conjure Stories, Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism, Role Call, Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam, Black Renaissance/Renaissance Noire, Obsidian III, and Drumvoices Revue: 10th Anniversary Edition among others. A native of Memphis, Thomas teaches creative writing and short fiction at the Frederick Douglass Creative Arts Center in Manhattan. She is at work on her novel, Bonecarver and leads Eldersongs, her intergenerational oral history/poetry project. http://blackpotmojo.blogspot.com William Trowbridge holds a B.A. in Philosophy and an M. A. in English from the University of Missouri-Columbia and a Ph.D. in English from Vanderbilt University. The author of five poetry collections including Ship of Fool (Red Hen Pr., 2011), The Complete Book of Kong (Southeast Missouri State Univ. Pr., 2003), Flickers, O Paradise, and Enter Dark Stranger (Univ. of Arkansas Pr., 2000, 1995, 1989), and three chapbooks, The Packing House Cantata (Camber Pr., 2006), The Four Seasons (Red Dragonfly Pr.,2001) and The Book of Kong (Iowa State Univ. Pr., l986). His poems have appeared in more than 30 anthologies, textbooks and periodicals; and his honors include an Academy of American Poets Prize, a Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference scholarship, and a Camber Press Poetry Chapbook Award.

Trowbridge is a Distinguished University Professor Emeritus at Northwest Missouri State University, where he was an editor of The Laurel Review/GreenTower Press from 1986 to 2004. Now living in Lee’s Summit, MO, he teaches at the University of Nebraska low-residency M.F.A. in writing program. www.williamtrowbridge.net Lora René Tucker holds a B.F.A. in Interior Design and a Masters in Social Work from Hunter College. She currently practices social work through Positive Direction, offering individual and creative therapy, cultural sensitivity and empowerment workshops. Tucker has performed her poetry at the Poetry Project, the Bowery Poetry Club and the Knitting Factory in NYC; and recently debut the poetry collection, Writes of Passage (2009). positivedirections.blogspot.com; inharmony2day.blogspot.com Craig Van Riper was born in Paterson, New Jersey and graduated from Cornell University. He has published three collections of poems, including Selected Poems, Craig Van Riper: Greatest Hits 1984-2004 (Pudding House Pub., 2004); Convenient Danger (Pecan Grove Pr., 2000); and Making the Path While You Walk (Sagittarius Pr., 1993). His work has appeared in over sixty literary journals and anthologies of contemporary American poetry, including Seattle Poets and Photographers: A Millennium Reflection (Univ. Washington Pr., 1999) and clearcut: anthology (Sub Rosa Pr., 1996). Van Riper was honored by the Washington Commission for the Humanities, recipient of the Pecan Grove Press National Prize (for Convenient Danger), and the Seattle Arts Commission Seattle Artists Award; a finalist for The Nation Discovery Prize, and was awarded a King County Arts Commission Honorarium. A contributing editor of San Francisco’s Five Fingers Review, he serves as Poet in Residence at Goldmyer Hotsprings and resides in Seattle.

Terence Winch is a musician, poet and writer. Originally from New York City, he is the son of Irish immigrants and now lives in the Washington, D.C. area. His recent books include the poetry collections, Falling Out of Bed in a Room with No Floor (Hanging Loose Pr., 2011); Boy Drinkers (Hanging Loose Pr., 2007); and That Special Place: New World Irish Stories (Hanging Loose Pr., 2004), a collection of non-fiction stories. Winch performs and writes songs for Celtic Thunder, a band that performs traditional Irish music, whose second album, “The Light of Other Days,” won the prestigious INDIE award for Best Celtic Album in 1988. His work has published in more than 20 anthologies and numerous periodicals, including Best American Poetry 2003 (Scribner’s, 2003); Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry (Random House, 2003); Great American Prose Poems: From Poe to the Present (Scribner’s, 2003); Poetry Daily: 366 Poems from the World’s Most Popular Poetry Website (Sourcebooks, 2003); and From Totems to Hip-Hop: A Multicultural Anthology of Poetry Across the Americas (Thunder’s Mouth. 2003). He received an NEA Fellowship in poetry, as well as grants from the DC Commission on the Arts, the Maryland State Arts Commission, and the Fund for Poetry. www.terencewinch.com

V O L. 3 N O. 1

151

P H A T I ‘ T U D E L I T E R A R Y M A G A Z I N E S P R I N G 2 0 1 1

C O V E R A R T Kristi Taylor

M

Y W ORK IS INTENDED to be entirely posiWORK tive. Painting makes me feel good and I hope

that good feeling extends to viewers and collectors. I was always a kid who loved to draw and make things, so naturally given the option, I chose to study art in college with painting as my concentration. After graduating with a Bachelors of Fine Art I took a variety of creative design jobs which eventually led to software interface design. During this time, my painting style was influenced by contemporary graphic design and experiments in color theory. In late Autumn, just after the leaves had fallen from the trees, I was inspired to create the “Tree View” paintings. In the past I always felt sadness for the loss of the leaves. but this year I only saw beauty in the lyrical lines of the empty branches and the shapes they created in the sky. My work continues to represent a new perspective, my new appreciation of organic change and finding the colorful inner beauty in each step. Today I live on a beautiful mountain lake in East Tennessee with my husband Josh and our three dogs. The “Tree View” collection is still growing and has evolved into several new series of contemporary landscapes of trees. The “Sunlit Tree” and “Sunlit Forest” series focus on light. and Tree Songs depicts the feeling or mood created by songwriters with color and subtle symbolism. See them at my website at www.kristitaylor.com.

Tree View No. 50; Copyright © 2010 36" x 36" x 2.5" Acrylic on canvas

V I S I T

O U R

W E B S I T E

A T

W W W . P H A T I T U D E . O R G